Today's Black History Minute

It's Black History Month readers and the Honest Man realized that we are more than halfway through and I have not blessed you with a Black History fact at all. My forefathers are probably looking down upon me going wondering if they sailed on those long boat rides and spent those long days in the fields for nothing. I'm here today to repent my sins and share a great tale.

There was a young black man from the Southeast United States that was working at a fast food chain. He was a good student, decent athlete, and had dreams of attending the same institution as the Honorable Dr. Martin Luther King. But while this young man had these good things going for him, he lacked direction and focus on what he would do with this life in the long-term.

As fate would have it, one Sunday morning at work, his assistant manager, also black, and 5 of his co-workers, white and all high school classmates of the young man, were at work with the young man. Since it was about half an hour until store open, the assistant manager had all 6 employees sit in a round table, ironically with the young man sitting next to her. She asked each white employee what their post high school plans were and one by one, they told her about their college plans.

However, when they finished talking, she did not ask her fellow African-American what his plans were. Instead she congratulated the 5 students for their future plans and commented that she hoped they would come by and visit her and the young man when they were on school break. Shocked by her comments, the young man interrupted his boss and told her that he was not only going to college but going on scholarship. The assistant was completely surprised by both statements and openly questioned the young man saying "You're going to college??? On Scholarship?" The young man quickly countered in token Kunta Kinte voice "Yessum I cans reads and writes."

Little did the assistant manager know that out of those 6 students, the young man had higher GPAs than all but one of them. But in her mind, she was brainwashed and bamboozled to believe that black folks were meant to pick cotton or in this case, ask customers if they want fries with that. As for the young man, he learned a valuable lesson that day. One, you need to have goals or you end up sounding like his boss. Two, never underestimate the ignorance of people. Last, sarcasm can be a great tool.

The young man would go to obtain his college degree, a MBA, get a good ass job (shoutout to Yeezy), become internationally known, nationally recognized, and locally accepted in the community. But his greatest professional accomplishment would be writing the Honest Views from a Honest Man blog :-).

Today's Lesson

Never underestimate the power of the stupid. The fact that I had to break out the slave voice to reiterate my intelligience is something that should have never had to happen. But on one hand, it did motivate to get up, get out and do something (shoutout to 'Kast) because I wouldn't have made it if I never even tried.

This Black History Minute has been brought to you by the Miller Lite Genuine Draft Fund, who will donate $1 for every hit to the United Negro College Fund.....NOT